Hundreds of prisoners in Georgia have been on “strike” for nearly a week, refusing to work, leave their cells, and in many instances, eat.

They are demanding payment for their labor (Georgia currently pays prisoners nothing for prison labor), better living conditions, decreased costs for phone calls and stamps (Georgia’s costs for these “privileges” are among the highest in the nation) access to education, access to programs that curb substance abuse, and other improvements to the physical conditions of prisoners’ lives in Georgia’s penitentiaries.

Folks on the outside need to step up and show some solidarity with the prisoners of Georgia! Demonstrations have happened in Atlanta and other large cities in the south, with a large demonstration in Richmond slated for the weekend.

Denver Anarchist Black Cross, a social movement defense organization active in the Denver Metro area, is calling for people of conscience in Denver to show solidarity with the courageous rebels in Georgia, who at this very moment are facing extremely violent reprisals for their actions. In several facilities, heat and hot water have been turned off to the cells of striking prisoners, and violent beatings and cell entries have become the norm.

Bring signs, your feelings of love, solidarity, and rage at the prison industrial complex and the ongoing repression and criminalization of poor and working people across the country as we connect the struggle in Georgia’s prisons to the conditions here in the Van Cise-Simonet Detention Center, where Marvin Booker was murdered by guards in July.

In communities across North America October 22nd has become a day to commemorate victims of police repression and violence. For many communities, October 22, 2010 took on a more urgent meaning in the wake of severe police repression and violence that has plagued cities large and small. In Denver, this year’s October 22nd event saw a rise in hostility towards the cops and an increased militancy from years’ past.

Throughout 2010, police in the metro area have repeatedly made headlines with horrific acts of violence directed at community members. Ranging from allegations of sexual assault, rapes of children, murders, and beatings, news stories have painted a picture of a department that is clearly running amok and waging war on the residents of Colorado. Offending officers are rarely held accountable and department leadership deftly sweeps incidents under the rug to stave off an increasingly angry public.

One of the most violent and high profile incidents occurred in July. Denver Sheriff’s Deputies serving as guards at the new Denver Justice Center murdered 56 year old Marvin Booker, a homeless preacher being held as a prisoner at the jail. Marvin had asked for access to his shoes before he would comply with orders to return to his cell. In response, five deputies tackled him, placed him in repeated choke and pain compliance holds, tasered him, and beat him. Marvin died shortly after the attack. While the local coroner deemed the death a homicide, the DA announced in late September that no charges would be filed against any of the officers involved.

In response, an ad hoc coalition called for a demonstration in the city in observation of O22. A cluster of diverse participants, most hearing of the march through fliers and handbills diffused around town, began to amass in Confluence Park. Folks were given access to candles, stickers with Marvin Booker’s face, and a bilingual handout to give to passerby on the route of the march. A banner was unfurled, “When police attack, we will fight back” and quickly the group, numbering at about eighty, took the street and marched towards the 16th street mall, the commercial center of downtown Denver.

The makeup of the crowd is a particularly important and revealing factor in how this march went down. Few members of the local “left” were present. About two dozen Denver based anarchists, most of whom were involved in organizing the demonstration were on hand along with several members of RAIM and Comite Defensa Del Pueblo. Otherwise, the crowd was nearly entirely made up of street youth and other homeless people. The participation of liberals, non-profit organizers, radical collective house dwellers, and even other militant revolutionaries and most of Denver’s anarchists was visibly lacking from the event. The march was almost entirely comprised of people that have direct experience with the police on a daily basis, who were motivated more by hatred at their direct social conditions than any reading of political theory.

Because of this, the mood of the march was pretty clear at the onset. Chants of “No justice, no peace, fuck the police” and “Cops, Pigs, Murderers” were loud and spirited. Previous debates that have plagued local activist circles for the last several months, about violence and nonviolence, about whether every cop is our enemy or not, were non-existent. The crowd was united by rage and a militancy that is all too rare in political actions in Denver or elsewhere.

Masked demonstrators dashed to passerby handing out fliers and slapping the stickers of Marvin on every imaginable surface, including shop windows, higher-priced cars, buses, and posts. The crowd gained more participants from the street, screaming Marvin’s name and jeering at the cops beginning to follow.

Halfway along the route, a parked police car was redecorated by the demonstrators. Stickers of Marvin were put on the windows, tires were slashed, people took keys to the paint and various projectiles were thrown at it. This was all done directly in front of an unmarked police car coming to respond to the march, a real indicator of how fearless and angry the crowd was.

This Saturday there will be a march against the police in Denver. We are not posting the organizers’ rhetoric in full because we find it deflating. We are not interested in “taking a tour,” but we intend to use this opportunity to take a little bit of our vengeance.

The very existence of the police is violence. Our very existence is revolt.

Saturday we will be in the streets. If this march ends up good for nothing more than social activity (don’t get us wrong, talking to people and passing out prop against the police is all well and good), let us arrange another time to get anti-social.

BOULDER — About 20 homeless people and some homeless advocates spent Saturday night on the lawn next to the Boulder Municipal Building to decry a camping ban. They say the city ordinance makes it a crime to be homeless.

“The goal of the sleep-in is to raise awareness among people who think we just go away in the summer,” homeless protester Michael Fitzgerald told the Boulder Daily Camera. “The shelters close, but we’re still here.”

Camping is defined as sleeping outside with shelter, even just a sleeping bag. Violators can be fined $100 or sentenced to community service.

The next day, May Day, about 10,000 people marched on the capitol against SB 1070 while another march of about 500 people with anti-captialist revolutionary tendencies, including an anarchist bloc, marched another route.

Today, there will be a protest against ICE-police collaboration and the criminalization of immigrants.

No to Napolitano, and No to All Cops!

Attorney General Eric Holder, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and FBI Director Robert Mueller will be among the top law enforcement officials speaking at a conference for the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Denver. Each is expected to speak at the conference, and Napolitano will be joining Gov. Bill Ritter Monday afternoon to unveil an educational video for the public about the signs of terrorist planning.

from the Denver Post

Interfaith Community Continues Six Months of Actions and Say to Napolitano
“Put the Freeze on Disastrous ICE-police partnerships”
The American Friends Service Committee & CO Faith Communities Call for the End of Police/ICE Partnerships
And for Just and Humane Immigration Reform